I'm trying to create a 'chain' like pattern that arcs round using the blend tool in Illustrator cs5.

This is what I get (the straight chain is the one I would like to replicate). The blend tool insists on 'warping' the chain links if I put them on a curved spine. I'm not really sure how else I could achieve this effect. Can someone point me in the right direction?

1 Answer
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I would be using a pattern brush for this. Yes the corners can be tricky. But corners are always tricky for pattern brushes. It merely takes some time to construct the proper corners. These corners aren't perfect, but give an idea about the corner construction.

This image shows a pattern brush. The images at the top show the pattern tiles. The areas in yellow show the defining rectangles used in the pieces. This brush is obviously larger in nature. That was done to show it clearly. It can easily be scaled to a smaller size with only three clicks of a mouse.